


home is where the heart is

by ThunderstormsandMemories



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-14 04:54:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15381096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThunderstormsandMemories/pseuds/ThunderstormsandMemories
Summary: Jace and Addax hold hands in an airport and talk about academia because they're married and in love





	home is where the heart is

**Author's Note:**

> this was written as a birthday present for Riley @jaceaddax, hope you enjoy it!

Addax’s flight from Counterweight was delayed, because almost every flight out of Counterweight was delayed, with how much interplanetary trade and travel had grown after Rigor's defeat, and the Rethal-Addax Spaceport always seemed to be the busiest. Addax usually tried to avoid it, because it was the busiest and therefore most delayed, but also because it was built to celebrate the worst day of his life. Before Jace had woken up he’d flatly refused to step foot in the building until someone convinced him it was literally the only way to get where he needed to go. There was a reason Jamil had been the agent stationed on Counterweight, not him.

Now that sense of dread was somewhat balanced out by the fluttering in his heart every time he saw their names linked together like that, remembered together for the rest of recorded history, and it reminded him of the other way their names were linked together, Jace and Addax Rethal-Dawn, in the official block letters of their marriage certificate. The first rays of light from the sunrise crept through the space shuttle’s window as they took off, catching on his wedding ring, and he smiled.

It was a long flight, from Counterweight to the spaceport in the city where Jace was studying, so out of the way that this was the only direct flight he could have possibly taken, a smallish planet on the edge of the Demarchy. But the university was very good, and there was less chance of either him or Jace being recognized and hounded for pictures and interviews.

By the time the flight finally landed it was several hours late, and Jace was sitting on the floor of the waiting area, looking worried and exhausted, but he jumped up when he saw Addax and threw his arms around him before he even set down his suitcase. “Sorry it’s so late,” he said. “I’ve missed you.”

“I missed you too,” said Jace, voice muffled because his face was still pressed into Addax’s shoulder as he held him tightly. He finally pulled away and picked up Addax’s suitcase, ignoring Addax’s protests that he could carry his own luggage, but not before briefly touching their foreheads together and kissing him lightly on the lips. “Want to get…whatever meal this would be for you?”

“Breakfast, probably,” Addax said, even though it was closer to midnight local time. He always lost track of time on long flights. “But don’t you have class in the morning? Shouldn’t we just sleep?”

Jace smiled at him fondly, that bright smile that had been melting his heart ever since the first time, and said, “My husband’s home. I’ve already cancelled class.”

They’d been married over a year now, and still hearing himself referred as Jace’s husband felt like falling in love with him all over again. “I love you,” he said, and Jace took his hand, their wedding rings clinking together.

“I love you too,” he said, and then, apologetically: “Constellation’s the only thing open this late.”

The spaceport Constellation Cafe was nearly empty, with only the robot cashier and a very tired-looking family of tourists wearing souvenir t-shirts from Kalliope. It looked almost identical to the thousands of other stores scattered across the sector, with a few flourishes of Apostolisian aesthetic and some regional drink specials as a nod toward cultural variation.

They settled into a booth in the corner, and Addax stirred an extra packet of sugar into his drink to give it any flavor at all and said, “So how’s school?”

“Great,” Jace said. “Really great, actually. And you know how I’m the TA for that poli sci class? We were talking about the Golden War a couple of days ago and the professor showed those pictures of us, you know, the ones from the propaganda posters? And I was sitting right at the front of the room and no one recognized that it was me.” Addax knew exactly which pictures Jace meant: there was usually a set of three images, Jace calling on OriCon to join him, Addax asking for help defending the Diaspora, and between them, Weight hanging golden in the sky with an overly pithy slogan about the so-called miracle on Counterweight. Addax always avoided looking at the picture of Weight for fairly obvious reasons, and he still thought his own picture was barely a step up from the official one on his pilot license. His smile was forced and insincere, not reaching his eyes, and if you looked close enough you could tell he was gritting his teeth, impatient to get this over with and get back to doing his job. Jace kept telling him it made him look serious, but in an attractive way and not in a ridiculously posed way, and Addax kept telling him that of course he thought that, but that his opinion was obviously biased.

On the other hand Jace’s picture was, in Addax’s equally biased but totally correct opinion, a work of art. Sure, it was corny and overly earnest, but the photography and designs teams had known what they were doing, and they’d done a fantastic job capturing the brightness in Jace’s eyes when he smiled, and his hair was tousled in a way that you would think took hours of work by the hair and makeup team to get it to fall so perfectly, if you didn’t know that no, actually, Jace’s hair just did that on its own, and Jace was already just that beautiful. In Addax’s biased but entirely accurate opinion.

He took Jace’s hand across the table and said, “Isn’t that why we live here, and not in OriCon space, or anywhere else you can get a decent cup of coffee?” It was a simple and beautiful thing, to consider this the place where he lived even though he spent so much time away on Rapid Evening business, even though he had an apartment on Kesh and safe houses on several other worlds. But this was where he came home to, because for as long as they’d been together, home meant wherever Jace was.

“Hey,” said Jace, pretending to be offended, a teasing smile on his lips. “There’s decent coffee sometimes, just not the middle of the night. It’s not this city’s fault some people like to sleep.”

“I like to sleep,” said Addax, attempting a fake yawn to illustrate his point that quickly turned into a real yawn, and Jace smiled fondly and lifted his hand so he could press a kiss to the palm of Addax’s hand. Looking at Jace now, it wasn’t surprising that people who didn’t already know who he was wouldn’t put the pieces together. The Jace of today was every bit as beautiful as he’d ever been, but it was hard to imagine the man sitting across from him in a thick oversized sweater, blinking sleepily at him behind a pair of crooked glasses, too-long sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The entire picture was, quite frankly, adorable, but it probably wasn’t what most people pictured when they wondered what the hero of OriCon was up to now.

“We should go home soon,” said Jace. “I’m tired, you’re tired. We can catch up tomorrow.”

“I’m not done with my sandwich,” Addax said, kind of wishing he’d gotten lunch on his flight and knowing it wouldn’t have been any better. “It kind of tastes like cardboard, but there’s probably something vaguely nutritious in it. What about your thesis?”

Jace’s eyes lit up. “I finally feel like I’m getting somewhere, and my advisor is really excited about it. Last week she sent me a study they just did on Gem that’s exactly what I’ve been looking for to prove my point. I think I just need one more section about other weird mesh phenomenons and then I’ll be ready for editing.”

“Do you have a date for your defense yet?”

“Not yet,” Jace said. “I’m thinking about sometime next year, maybe early spring? I’ll try to schedule it when you can get a break from work, but I know you don’t always know that far in advance, and I really really want you to be there if you can.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for anything,” said Addax. “If anything comes up I’ll reschedule it. I want to be here for you.”

“Oh,” Jace said, “thank you.” And then, softly: “Have I ever mentioned I love you?”

“Once or twice,” Addax said, holding both of Jace’s hands in his own. “I love you too."

“I know,” said Jace. “How is work, by the way?”

“Oh, you know,” Addax said, “the usual. Too much to do, not enough time to do it. We’re thinking about giving Maxine Ming a bigger administrative role, just so that Jamil and I don’t have to do as much organizing. Jamil misses being in the field, I think. She’s been taking over one of Mako’s missions while he’s on vacation.”

“Coincidentally at the same time as Representative Joie and her wife?” Jace said, grinning. “And Cassander, and they’re all going to spend a month at a beach resort on the far side of Apostolos?”

“How did you know that? And don’t say from the news, I know you follow the news closer than anyone I know but no reporter could possibly have that much detail. Or if one does I’ll have to tell the press secretary they’ve got someone leaking secrets to the tabloids again.”

“I got lunch with Sokrates last week,” Jace said. “They told me the Chime’s having a reunion vacation to celebrate Cassander’s birthday, since it’s not a planet-wide holiday the way it was under the Empire. I guess I should’ve known it was meant to be a secret, with how pleased they looked to be telling me.”

“How’s Sokrates doing?” Addax said. He’d been meaning to contact them for a while now, but he never knew what to say.

“They’re happy,” said Jace. “Really, actually happy. It’s nice to see. I mean, all their hard work with the Demarchy is finally paying off, and I know they still worry, but now that their term is over they get to sit back at least a little bit and enjoy it. Also, you wouldn’t believe what they told me about Tea and Natalya. Well, maybe you would. But apparently they’re both thinking of proposing to each other, and Sokrates is doing their best to make sure they both try to do it at the same time.”

“Of course they are,” said Addax, finally giving up on his sandwich and slurping down the last bit of overly sweetened foam from his drink as Jace yawned widely. “You can tell me all about it in the morning.”

He drifted off to sleep that night to the sound of Jace’s steady, quiet breathing, as they lay curled towards each other with their foreheads almost touching, so that if Addax opened his eyes he could have counted his eyelashes, or the freckles brushed faintly across the bridge of his nose, and he could feel himself relaxing just being in Jace’s presence after so much time away.


End file.
